High-Speed Rail (HSR) - Toronto/Pearson/Kitchener/London

[tomh009]

Absolute yes to building a faster train (whatever speed).

Realistically even a non-stop maglev wouldn't eliminate all the air travel, though. People doing a flight connection in YYZ or YUL would still fly (switching between the two modes not so easy or quick) and for some people getting to the airport is much easier than reaching Union Station. But it would certainly be a significant positive impact.

So you’ve used a vaguely passive sentence here. A quality fast transit connection wouldn’t by itself kill off flights in our current regulatory framework. But it would eliminate the practical need (any connecting air passengers can use the train connection) and if we really cared we could change the regulatory framework to encourage or enforce this.

And of course plenty of people will scream bloody murder about this idea. It’s a complete nonstarter in today’s political climate. But todays political climate is one where not only does HSR not exist but it practically cannot exist. We are speaking in hypotheticals here. In some of the places where HSR of this form does exist they have indeed eliminated competing flights through regulation.

Technically possible, yes. But neither Union Station (35+ minutes by train) nor Gare Centrale (45+ minutes by bus) currently offer a fast connection to the airport; those would also need to be built in addition to high-speed rail. Luggage handling should also be built (check your luggage when you board the train, automatically transferred to the flight at the other end) as well as a check-in infrastructure. (Unified security is probably not realistic.)

In terms of regulatory framework ... if you are thinking of banning flights between Toronto and Montreal, that surely would eliminate the air traffic, but I can't think of any country that has actually gone that extreme.

[ijmorlan]

In terms of regulatory framework ... if you are thinking of banning flights between Toronto and Montreal, that surely would eliminate the air traffic, but I can't think of any country that has actually gone that extreme.

Anyway, banning shouldn’t be necessary, and presumes a level of knowledge unlikely to be possessed by the central planners.

If there are still people flying after an excellent HSR service has been operating for a few years, maybe there are actual reasons why they are doing so. None of this needs to be 100% anyhow, and that applies to all these things. If a few people commute 50 minutes each way by car it’s not a problem. What is a problem is designing our society so that a large fraction of the population finds that to be the best way to go, and even somebody who would rather do something different finds it difficult to switch.

[bravado]

Technically possible, yes. But neither Union Station (35+ minutes by train) nor Gare Centrale (45+ minutes by bus) currently offer a fast connection to the airport; those would also need to be built in addition to high-speed rail. Luggage handling should also be built (check your luggage when you board the train, automatically transferred to the flight at the other end) as well as a check-in infrastructure. (Unified security is probably not realistic.)

In terms of regulatory framework ... if you are thinking of banning flights between Toronto and Montreal, that surely would eliminate the air traffic, but I can't think of any country that has actually gone that extreme.

France banned any domestic flight that takes a route that could be served via 2.5hrs on a train instead: https://www.euronews.com/green/2022/12/0...-proposals

The law will mostly rule out air trips between Paris Orly airport and regional hubs such as Nantes, Lyon and Bordeaux.

Critics have noted that the cutoff point is shy of the roughly three hours it takes to travel from Paris to the Mediterranean port city Marseille by high-speed rail.

Straight-line Paris to Marseille is 650km, Toronto to Montreal is 500km.

[tomh009]

Two notes to that one (and I will admit I had all forgotten about it until now!): first, the Paris airports have much better train connectivity than ours do. And, more importantly, what is actually banned are (complete) trips by air, not flights.

From the same article:

Connecting flights are unaffected by the new law.

[danbrotherston]

Two notes to that one (and I will admit I had all forgotten about it until now!): first, the Paris airports have much better train connectivity than ours do. And, more importantly, what is actually banned are (complete) trips by air, not flights.

From the same article:

Connecting flights are unaffected by the new law.

lol. I mean I was alluding to this, I should have just said it. That said I don’t know the specific details but Air France codeshares with sncf (the French railway). As for airport connections, obviously, but that was already a part of the Ontario HSR proposal. A fast airport connection is about the easiest part of whatever we are discussing.

[KevinL]

Design and development for a Toronto-Ottawa-Montreal-Quebec line will proceed under a $3.9-billion budget on a 5-year timeframe. Construction could begin soon after (pending whatever government is in charge at that point, I would presume).

https://www.cbc.ca/news/politics/trudeau...-1.7462538

[danbrotherston]

Anyone want to take a bet on this one?

[westwardloo]

Anyone want to take a bet on this one?

I don't like the odds, but I am hopeful that cooler head prevail and we see this moved forward through design. Once we have the design work 100% done, I think the business case is there for HSR, it will just be about convincing the public to spend 100+b on a rail line. We may have to build it section at a time. Montreal to Ottawa Phase 1, Ottawa to Toronto Phase 2, starting halfway through phase 1, Quebec to Montreal Phase 3, starting once phase 1 is operational. 

Might be easy from a public perception to build 3 $40 billion project than 1 $120 billion project. 

The only way this thing proceeds past an announcement of funds is for Carney and the Liberals to win the next election or win enough seats to keep PP and the Conservatives to a small minority. This project seems like a big win for the people of Ontario and Quebec.

[danbrotherston]

Anyone want to take a bet on this one?

I don't like the odds, but I am hopeful that cooler head prevail and we see this moved forward through design. Once we have the design work 100% done, I think the business case is there for HSR, it will just be about convincing the public to spend 100+b on a rail line. We may have to build it section at a time. Montreal to Ottawa Phase 1, Ottawa to Toronto Phase 2, starting halfway through phase 1, Quebec to Montreal Phase 3, starting once phase 1 is operational. 

Might be easy from a public perception to build 3 $40 billion project than 1 $120 billion project. 

The only way this thing proceeds past an announcement of funds is for Carney and the Liberals to win the next election or win enough seats to keep PP and the Conservatives to a small minority. This project seems like a big win for the people of Ontario and Quebec.

Yeah, I mean, given the timing (before an election) this seems like a dubious proposal. I also think the timing of "immediately before a trade war with the worlds biggest superpower" makes it pretty unlikely to get funded, even if the liberals won and wanted to do it.

[bravado]

I have very limited hopes that it will exist, be made on time, or be made on budget.

A serious government would send this to the growing metropolis of Cambridge, not just stop in boring Toronto.

[ijmorlan]

What is going on with the construction costs? Apparently the design phase is to cost something like $4G. This is several million dollars per kilometre. Now, OK, I’m sure that’s not evenly distributed. For example, designing the kilometre that includes the Ottawa River bridge will inevitably cost much more than most other kilometres of the project, but still, most of the kilometres of the project can be designed by picking a route and figuring out exactly how much fill has to be dug out here and dumped there to create a straight and level trackbed. Then it’s just a matter of laying track along the trackbed. Now I know we don’t just send out a crew of guys with supplies any more, but still, millions of dollars per kilometre, just for the design, seems absurd to me. I would have thought it could be built for not so much more than the number they are quoting for design.

Of course, all of this is irrelevant. If the current government had really had any intention of doing this then today’s announcement could have been made 5 years ago. Rick Mercer will have to update his “high speed rail report” item. But it’s cool to think that the fictitious federal project from Quebec to Toronto could link up with the fictitious provincial project from Toronto to London from a couple of elections back.

[bravado]

It’s par for the course… nobody in Canada wants to dig into why things cost what they do. They just raise their eyebrows at the price and accept getting half as much as other countries do for the same money.

[SammyOES]

Honestly, I get the appeal of Musk/Trump for people that align to that political belief system. They’re doing stuff in days/weeks and we’re sitting here talking about a 5 year study.

And yes, building stuff is always harder than destroying stuff. Following rules is slower than ignoring laws you don’t like. But maybe we could take 10% of their attitude and approach and knock this baby down to 2 years.

[plam]

Honestly, I get the appeal of Musk/Trump for people that align to that political belief system.  They’re doing stuff in days/weeks and we’re sitting here talking about a 5 year study.

And yes, building stuff is always harder than destroying stuff.  Following rules is slower than ignoring laws you don’t like.  But maybe we could take 10% of their attitude and approach and knock this baby down to 2 years.

for what it's worth, the NZ Coalition of Chaos has been pretty busy destroying stuff in the 1 year it's been in office, but it's currently looking bad for them and we'll see what happens next year when they're up for reelection (3 year terms).

[danbrotherston]

Honestly, I get the appeal of Musk/Trump for people that align to that political belief system.  They’re doing stuff in days/weeks and we’re sitting here talking about a 5 year study.

And yes, building stuff is always harder than destroying stuff.  Following rules is slower than ignoring laws you don’t like.  But maybe we could take 10% of their attitude and approach and knock this baby down to 2 years.

for what it's worth, the NZ Coalition of Chaos has been pretty busy destroying stuff in the 1 year it's been in office, but it's currently looking bad for them and we'll see what happens next year when they're up for reelection (3 year terms).

It is absolutely understandable why people are angry at the status quo, and at the inaction of status quo politicians, and why people would be interested in something different. And it is hard to believe how oblivious some in the establishment circles are to this reality.

But I still don't understand a) how people are so easily duped by obvious con men like Musk and Trump, and b) why even ignoring the cons, their anger at legitimate issues so easily translates into hate for people who have less than them, who are so obviously not the problem.

If Trump voters were saying "I disagree with a lot of what he says, but I'd like to see him burn everything down, because the current system is entirely broken" well, that would be one thing. 

But they're not saying that, instead they're saying "I'm angry about egg prices, and for some reason I've been convinced to blame trans people and immigrants and also they're eating my pets". I've taken a course in cults, and I understand the processes by which people are conditioned into cults, so I know it's possible, but I don't see those practices happening here, there's something more at play.